


What is Mine

by Magik3



Series: Kitty told me to name this series [5]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: F/F, Friendship/Love, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 15:27:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11210910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magik3/pseuds/Magik3
Summary: Only Kitty gets to see how messed up Illyana is from her time in Limbo. When some of the other New Mutants go too far talking about Illyana's demon side, it becomes much more personal to Kitty than she expected.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part of some longer musings on trauma and Illyana, with some very sweet and briefly hot parts mixed in. This happens after the New Mutants Special Edition of 1985 where they end up in Asgard for a while.

It was easy to forget what had happened to Illyana if you didn't see her every day or, more importantly, every night. Kitty has seen her hanging out in the living room with the other New Mutants, looking mostly like any other teen girl — and if her words sound stilted or she forgets to smile, easy to put that down to her being Russian.   
  
Much harder to forget while living with her.   
  
There are times when she does pull-ups by putting her fingertips over the top of the door frame. Suspending her whole body weight on her fingers, she moves up and down smoothly, like it's not so hard. Like she's passing time. Kitty's hands are strong from fighting practice, but not that strong.   
  
There are times when Ilya does pushups in the small area between the foot of her bed and Kitty’s so she can't be easily seen from the doorway. Not just the standard ones, but one-handed, sideways, arm balances with her legs at improbable angles. Habits from when she didn't want Belasco to see how strong she was becoming. From when the only way she could rebel was through her body.   
  
The other week, Kitty found her in their room, at the desk, staring out the open door. "What happened?" she asked.   
  
"It's open," Ilya said. "It's been open all afternoon. The sun's going down and it's still open."  
  
"You could close it."  
  
"Can we leave it open tonight? All night?"   
  
Kitty stared at the open door, a sudden pressure of tears behind her eyes. "Of course. As long as you want."  
  
Ilya came back to herself more at that. Her eyes focused on Kitty's face and a hint of grin moved her lips. "Not always," she said. "I also like that it closes."   
  
"In Limbo …?" Kitty trailed off because she was never sure how much to ask, what to ask.   
  
Illyana looked at her hands, curled open in her lap. The Professor had been making her go to a therapist and it seemed to be helping. Most of her first year back, she didn’t talk about it at all, only woke screaming. Sometimes she’d clung to Kitty like she was a little kid and other times she sat like a stone, barely responding to Kitty’s questions, acting like nothing had happened.  
  
Ilya said, “In the palace the door was locked at night. Sometimes all day. But I got used to that, even liked it—peaceful. Eventually I figured out how to unlock it, but I couldn't let him know that, so it stayed closed. I wanted it closed. Trying to feel safe, knowing he was always out there, but at least not seeing me. Open means free, means he isn't out there waiting with the next lesson."  
  
Their door was still open when Kitty went to bed. It was still open in the middle of the night when she woke thirsty. Illyana sat in the doorway, head back against the molding. Kitty got a glass of water, drank half, went to sit beside her.  
  
"Are you asleep sitting up?" she whispered because Ilya's eyes were closed.  
  
"No, I never learned that. I thought it would sit here until it felt real, but since we have class tomorrow, maybe I had better not wait that long."   
  
Still, she didn't get up.   
  
"You don't talk about it much," Kitty ventured.   
  
Illyana whispered, "I still feel like he can hear me."   
  
"He can't."  
  
"That's what they all tell me, the Professor, the therapist, Storm. But it feels like no matter how many miles, dimensions, time, wherever he is, if I speak ill of him, he will know and he will reach through the time and space to kill me."  
  
“That’s awful.” Kitty took her hand, leaned against her shoulder, felt Illyana lean back slightly, curl her fingers around Kitty's.   
  
Illyana whispered, “The terror is so deep. I cannot put words to it.”  
  
Kitty remembered a thing she'd overheard because she'd phased into the back part of the library. Storm had been saying, " … we have to remember that Belasco was her parent figure for longer than her birth parents. We're underestimating the influence and control he's had on her mind."   
  
"Six to fourteen, those are very formative years," Dr. MacTaggert said. “On top of the trauma itself of being kidnapped into that brutal world, from six to eleven, she should've been socializing with peers. And at twelve and thirteen, with changes in hormones and emotions, she should've been starting to individuate more strongly, and I think she was, but in a place where there was no room for her to be herself. At least she had a secure early childhood attachment, but she missed so many key developmental stages. We have to figure out how to provide those without making her feel like a child.”   
  
"Not to mention we have no idea what the demon sorcery really did to her psyche,” Storm said. “She might not be entirely human at this point. Stephen Strange was not as forthcoming as usual. I believe he has … concerns."  
  
“Do we know anything about the maturation process for demons?” MacTaggert asked. Like that was a normal thing to ask. Well, maybe it was. But when it was about Kitty's more-than-best friend, it didn’t seem right to keep listening, nor did she really want to.   
  
Kitty backed out the way she’d come. Usually she wanted to know everything, but not if they were going to talk about Ilya like she wasn’t human.  There were so many mutants that didn’t seem wholly human. And Warlock wasn’t at all, and they talked with aliens all the time. But somehow it was different when it came to demons.   
  
It bothered her that it was different. Deeply, but in a way she couldn’t quite place.   
  
Kitty overheard far more conversations than she intended to, and lately too many of them had been about demons. Yes, sometimes she was sneaking on purpose, but mostly she phased through walls and doors because it was easy and good practice. That’s how she’d overheard the worst conversation about Illyana ever in the mansion.   
  
It was late, the New Mutants had been watching movies. Illyana came up to their room, flopped and her bed and groaned that she’d left her books in the living room, but she was too sore to get up. Kitty had said she’d go get them since she could phase down and be back in seconds. She went into the hall so she wouldn’t phase into the bedroom below theirs, passed to the lower level and went through the wall into the living room. The room was dark, only one lamp on and the VCR paused on the credits of the movie.   
  
Sam and Roberto were at opposite ends of the couch with Rahne sitting on the floor, leaning back against the armchair. Kitty could see from their positions that Dani must’ve been in the chair and just left, Amara and Xi’an would’ve been in the middle of the couch, and Ilya must’ve taken the other armchair. Now it was just Sam, Roberto and Rahne passing around the last of the popcorn.  
  
Kitty’s cheerful greeting died in her throat because Roberto was saying, “… you know she might be more demon than human. Fangs and horns, man, I’m telling you. How do we even know what we see every day is her real form?”  
  
Kitty pressed back into the shadows and stayed phased, making her nearly invisible.  
  
“Could be like Colossus,” Sam said. “He turns metal. She turns demon.”   
  
“Nah, she’s like that all the time. I heard the X-Men talking about it. That thing she was in Asgard, that’s part of her.”  
  
“Yeah, it’s like everyone became more themselves there,” Sam agreed. “But the X-Men wouldn’t leave her with us if she was that dangerous.”  
  
“Are you sure?” Rahne asked. “Demons are evil. Satan is always trying to win his way into people’s minds and his demons are there only to serve that end, to turn people away from God and what’s good. And they are very clever and tricky.”   
  
“Might be more than one kind of demon,” Sam said.   
  
“Even so, it’s not like there’s a good kind,” Roberto argued. “Maybe Illyana’s not the kind that Rahne’s talking about, but Limbo’s a pretty wicked place and weren’t they planning to take over this world? How do we know she’s not still one of them?”   
  
He leaned forward toward Rahne. Trying to scare her in that stupid way he did, as if it would make her, or any girl, want to cling to him.   
  
“How do we know she won’t do magic on us in our sleep, take our blood and work spells with it?” he asked. “She probably already has some of your blood stashed for emergencies.”  
  
“NO!” Kitty roared. She came solid, moving forward and slammed her hand down on the back of the couch. “No you DO NOT get to say that Roberto da Costa!”   
  
“What?” he put his hands up. “Doesn’t demon magic require blood? Where else is she going to get it from? I’m just saying what’s true.”   
  
It wasn’t true. But his misinformation wasn’t the heart of the problem. Kitty had heard words like his before, but not about demons. Not about mutants. And she knew exactly what had been sickening her about the way people talked about Illyana.  
  
Kitty was shaking so hard she had to hold onto the couch, tears starting down her face. “Do you know what they said about my people? They said Jews murdered children to use their blood for our holidays. Disgusting awful accusations that warped and perverted the kosher laws and our celebrations of life. For hundreds of years, millions of my people were slaughtered because they were demonized … just like you’re doing now, tonight, with one of our own. How dare you! HOW DARE YOU!”  
  
Roberto looked like she’d slapped him and she was glad. Sam’s face had gone ghostly white and Rahne crawling away, around the side of the armchair.   
  
“Katya,” Illyana’s voice came from the doorway, low and soft. “He will learn. They will all learn.”  
  
She paused, the silence in the room a collective in-drawn, held breath. Illyana looked at each of them: Roberto, Sam, Rahne. She said, “All of you will study this and teach it to the rest of us, the history of anti-semitism. Yes? And the … what is it called in English?”  
  
“Blood libel,” Kitty snarled.  
  
There were hasty sounds of agreement from Roberto and Sam and Rahne.  
  
“And you will apologize,” Illyana told Roberto.   
  
“I’m sorry I called you a demon,” Roberto started, but she stopped him with a click of her tongue.   
  
“Not to me. What do I care if you call me a demon? The Nazis were completely human, many of them normal people who thought they were doing the right thing. In the face of that evil, what do I have to be ashamed of?” Illyana asked, looking evenly at Roberto who couldn’t meet her gaze. She added, “Apologize to Kitty.”   
  
“I’m sorry I … um, said those things and I won’t again, I promise. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t know. I would never … I’m sorry.”  
  
“You don’t want more of an apology for you?” Kitty asked Illyana.  
  
She shrugged. “I am learning much about psychological projection. It means he sees in me what he fears most in himself. At least I know my demon side. Tonight, Roberto, you met your own cruelty face to face. Get to know him so we don’t have to. And the next time I have to get out of my bed because you made Kitty scream at you … best to make sure there is no next time.”  
  
Illyana held out her hand. “Katya, it is time for hot chocolate and crying and maybe you will tell me again about your grandmother.”   
  
As they left the room, Kitty heard the sound of Rahne weeping quietly and it helped her relax to know that they got how awful they’d been. Better still the hot chocolate and Ilya holding her while she cried herself to sleep.   
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

For someone who'd spend years in a world of demons, Illyana's body was strangely unmarked. There wasn't a single scar on her creamy golden tan skin. Kitty mentioned the lack of scars once, in the hazy lying together in bed time late at night, and Illyana had said, "I had a few that I got with Cat. One beside my knee here and a long jagged one up my arm. He used magic to take them away. He wanted me to be perfect."  
  
She said it in the flat, far away voice she used when speaking of Belasco, her eyes staring up at nothing, and Kitty shivered.  
  
Illyana said, “I’m sorry, Katya.” As if it had been her fault.  
  
And yet, the place Illyana seemed most unaffected was in bed. Specifically, in bed with Kitty, the two of them pressed close, or one on top of the other, in Kitty's narrow bed. Usually they ended up in her bed. Perhaps because it was across from the door. Illyana's was closer, but behind the door when it opened, so required more acrobatics to land in it.  
  
A few times lately they'd not quite made it to either bed. And once not made it much past the door itself. They'd come in together and Ilya had pushed her against the wall by the door and kissed her deeply. Kitty had been thinking about computer circuits … and then she was absolutely not thinking about that. She grabbed Ilya's shoulders. Ilya put a hand on her breast, rough fingers on her nipple, and Kitty's knees buckled.  
  
They went down in a heap, but solid, no phasing through the floor. No phasing through Illyana, who'd gotten herself on the bottom. Maybe to cushion the fall, or to give Kitty room to push away if she wanted to, which she did not.  
  
Or perhaps because what Illyana wanted was to be on her back on the floor with Kitty phasing her fingertips through Illyana's clothing.  
  
She was talking in Russian, but mostly words Kitty knew. A lot of "yes" and even more "please" sprinkled with "Katya." And eventually a phrase Kitty had heard often enough that she'd snuck into Doug's books and looked it up: я весь твой, _ya ves' tvoy_ <I'm all yours>  
  
But by then Illyana's pants and underpants and come off, fast, jerked down and kicked away, because it was too hard for Kitty to concentrate on phasing only part of her hand. And she really wanted to be focusing only on the liquid steel silk strength of lllyana and the way her body arched and rocked to the motions of Kitty's fingers.  
  
Later, when they'd crawled into bed and were tangled together under the sheet, Kitty said, "When we're like this, I always know how you feel. I like that."  
  
"Mm, when we're like this I feel most myself."  
  
Kitty didn't know how to respond other than smile and play with the curve behind Illyana's ear.  
  
Ilya went on after a while, saying, "This is easy and it's mine. I never am conflicted with you or in my body when there's pleasure. … For all his evil, he was not interested in me like that, because I was a child. And so all this is only mine: my sexuality, my body when I am feeling sexy, all the ways of touching you and you touching me. All of that is only for me." She added, _eto moye_ <it is mine>  
  
“And me?” Kitty couldn’t stop herself from asking and grinning. “ _Ya ves tvoy_?” It was probably the wrong conjugation as a question, but Ilya understood.  
  
She pushed up on an elbow. “Of course. Always, if you want, always mine.”


End file.
